2025-01-12 00:22:12
2025-01-11 13:29:41
2025-01-11 13:28:41
24118936
Imagine the Silly Valley monetization model as applied to a coffee cup.
It does one thing. You can't sell accessories, just replacements that will potentially work just as good as new for 40 years. Turn into a fashion accessory with new designs, sure, but the *core functionality* is a mature product.
But that doesn't stop the AI bros from trying to sell you the AI-assisted cloud-enabled coffee filter …
linova.ai/products-coffee.html
mstdn.social/@bjn/113809933928…
Where is the monetisation and growth potential in that? Gotta get your user base to upsell crap to as well as mine their data, otherwise your VCs will be grumpy. The Silicon Valley model for tech funding directly leads to enshitification, take that money and you have to get on that bandwagon. SaaS businesses also helps drive that, as custom acquisition is the key metric, not customer satisfaction.And thank you for pointing me to iA Writer, an excellent single purpose tool, for now.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
Simon Landmine reshared this.
Antonio Páez 🇲🇽🇨🇦
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Only slightly less ridiculous than this product to spy your cat
catgenie.com/products/catgenie…
CatGenie A.I.
CatGenieCharlie Stross reshared this.
jer
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Can't here you over the noise of my #juicero
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juicero
startup that sold Internet-connected juice presses
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Bruno Nicoletti
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Charlie Stross • •like this
Shinydan and Complexity of systems like this.
Charlie Stross
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Charlie Stross • •like this
Alan Braggins and EaterOfSnacks like this.
Mark Wollschlager
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •I can't imagine my coffee maker telling me I need to drink more to maintain my caffeine ingestion profile. Or you may have only a half cup of this or it will skew your data.
Rachel Greenham
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •@bjn my M1Pro MacBook Pros (I ended up with two of them by accident) are now in their fourth year, and it still feels weird how i feel absolutely no pressure to upgrade computers that old, and can't see anything on the horizon that'll bring that pressure. And I always was an eager upgrader.
Apple Silicon seems to have (accidentally?) brought on that market maturity. They can only ruin it by enshittifying services, and there's Asahi Linux for that day.
Charlie Stross
in reply to Rachel Greenham • • •@StrangeNoises @bjn Same. We've got one Mac update to do in the next few months— @feorag is still on an Intel iMac, I think their next will be an M4Pro Mac Mini—but then I reckon we'll be stable for several yers.
BUT … Tim Cook is 64. I expect him to retire by 70. And after Tim departs I think it likely that Apple will be no more enshittifiction-proof than Google or Microsoft.
Rachel Greenham
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Cyberspice
in reply to Rachel Greenham • • •xinit ☕
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •